Tissue Morphogenesis: Take a Step Back and Relax!

The Next Step Forward Is to Take a Step Back.

Understanding the causes of diabetes is at the heart of most diabetes research. The field of causal inference has made dramatic advances in methodology that allows for causal inference from observational and not experimental data (1). One such methodological advancement is the use of genetic markers as instrumental variables, or so-called Mendelian randomization (MR) (2). MR relies on the laws ...

Efficient Take-Back Legislation

P roduct and waste take-back is becoming more regulated by countries to protect the environment. Such regulation puts an economic burden on firms, while creating fairness concerns and potentially even missing its primary target: environmental benefits. This research discusses the economic and environmental impacts of extended producer responsibility type of legislation and identifies efficiency...

Complex trait locus linkage mapping in atherosclerosis: time to take a step back before moving forward?

E ver since the initial proposal to use polymorphic DNA markers to map genetic diseases,1 linkage analysis (also called “positional cloning”) has been used successfully to find the gene defects for hundreds of monogenic Mendelian traits.2 Because monogenic diseases can serve as important models for understanding pathogenesis, especially if they point to novel biochemical and physiological pathw...

Tissue Growth and Morphogenesis: from Genetics to Mechanics and Back (12w5048)

Tissue growth and morphogenesis are fundamental processes in developmental biology. On the cellular level, cell size growth, cell division, and cell shape changes are controlled by signaling molecules that, in turn, are expressed according to a genetic blueprint. On the tissue level, different cell types arrange themselves in spatial patterns that eventually form the tissue or organ. Evidently,...

One step forwards, one step back.